Africa's Top Product Exports and Destinations

February 2024

Researched by

Overview

Africa's international trade landscape presents a dynamic tapestry of opportunities shaped by its rich array of natural resources, agricultural abundance, and burgeoning manufacturing sectors. Over the years, with the support of foreign production knowledge combined with open policies by many local governments in Africa, the increase of GDP per capita in products and services is a strong evidence of all these investments.

Africa has been demonstrating steady growth in export activities, with key mineral commodities such as gold, diamonds, petroleum products and other natural resources. Agricultural staples such as cocoa, coffee, cotton, and tea are also being recognized in the global trade market. The production chains of mineral and agricultural products have long been established with the use of machines and technologies run by the young and energetic workforce.

Besides, the growing emphasis on the export of manufactured goods, particularly textiles, machinery and electronics, is highlighting the continent's efforts to diversify its export bases and ascend the value chain. There is a noticeable increase of labor shifting to work from agricultural to industrial fields, as to meet the increasing demand of urban development, this new labor force is also equipped to take crucial roles in infrastructure and engineering projects.

Growth

Africa's thriving export dynamics reveal a nuanced picture shaped by multiple factors. From increased production efficiency, trade procedures streamline, intra-regional trade agreements, to higher valued-added products propelled by innovation, we are expecting to witness more tight essential strategic partnerships that diversify export categories and destinations.

Undeniably, we have experienced an uprising of economic activities in Africa over the past few decades, and the trend will go up along with the youth boom. The value of export goods and services rose 2 times over 15 years from 2005 to 2019. With boosted productivity, the export trade volume of Africa is projected to hit the USD 1 trillion mark by 2035.

African countries have been recovering from COVID-19, and their export activities are rebounding and remaining resilient, with average growth of the overall economy stabilized at around 4 percent annual growth in 2023. The pandemic caused a new world order in which we are starting to see the landscape of African manufacturing led-growth and the integration in the Regional Value Chain. The emergence of more diversified products indicate the potential of export values of Africa in the upcoming years and decades.

Top list

Top product exports, by country in Africa:

World's biggest exporters, from Africa:

Product exports per capita, by country in Africa:

Top product export destinations, by country in Africa:

Africa's product and service exports valued USD 1.41 billion in 2021, in which an average of 15 percent of total African exports was estimated to be intra-trade. Leveraging its natural resources, the export value of mineral commodities and precious metals such as gold, diamonds, and petroleum products are significant, compared to other continents.

Service exports from Africa are rather on the low side. In 2021, the continent's service exports accounted for 15.6% of the total African exports of both goods and services, compared to pre-pandemic with 20.8% in 2019. (Armaz Capital is specialized in exports of goods, so the coverage of services is reduced in this writing.)

Opportunities

Based on the expansive population pyramid, investors could quickly realize investing in Africa offers early access to the fastest growing continent with immense potential. By tapping into Africa's export industry, investors can position themselves to capitalize the rising demand for goods and services both domestically and internationally.

Expanding consumer markets:

We will witness the societal shifts of the upcoming generations of youth, with an average of under 19 years old, whose potential is yet to be unleashed with new job creation. More people are undergoing urbanization, and entering the emerging middle class with higher purchasing power and demands for fast-moving consumer goods, electronics, and other products.

Supportive policy environment:

African governments have been actively unlocking partnerships with trading organizations both in the continent and beyond. Initiatives like the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) attempts to harmonize trade regulations and facilitate cross-border trade of goods. The COMESA-EAC-SADC tripartite free trade area is also accelerating economic integration across African countries. China's One Belt One Road has activated more ports opened in Africa. Reduction of trade barriers also means more raw and processed goods could be moved freely across the continent with streamlined customs producers, which benefits supply chain operators, investors and business owners.

Export to the East:

The vitality of export trade is seen more actively with Eastern countries than the countries in Europe and North Africa. China has injected human capital and industrial facilities for large-scale engineering instructure, which in return has proven to strengthen mutual trade activities. The world's highest population country, India also enjoyed rich import resources from Africa. The United Arab Emirate has gained global attention during COVID-19 thanks to the inflow of wealthy individuals who were convinced by the forward-thinking digital industry policy. The rise of the UAE economy has greatly increased the mobility of various export products from Africa, beyond diamonds, and petroleum byproducts.

Abundant resources:

Due to the abundant arable land, African countries have been investing in agricultural developments, from higher yield farming methods, technology-enable production lines, to various end-product presentations for global consumers. Industrialization efforts also boost the output of manufacturing exports and textiles. The advancement of production facilities has enhanced the exported products not only in the raw form, but also in usable components and semi-finished goods.

Higher export diversification:

Besides more complex manufacturing products such as optical and textiles, Africa has been adding new products to its export baskets. Items such as base metals, footwear, fats and oils, have seen rosen in the past few years. As mentioned, AfCFTA is one key catalyst. The access to cross-country services and intermediate inputs within Africa, attracted foreign investments which were then injected to ignite the export volume of value-added goods to meet external demands.

Despite the optimistic findings, Africa is allocating resources to address complex hurdles such as infrastructural deficiencies, and market volatility. Besides governmental intervention to make the market more free for international trade, the continent required foreign investments to fully harness its export potential.

Sources: WTO, UNCTAD, WITS, ICDT, IFC, ITC, IMF, Word Bank, WEF, OEC, BACI (2021), and many more governments' and NGO materials, etc.